Lincoln village parents launch ‘park and stride’ to reduce school traffic

Around 40 children, alongside parents, siblings, volunteers and councillors, marched in formation to a Lincoln village school today, kicking off a scheme to reduce congested school gate drop-offs.

Parking around schools can be problematic for many, but for parent Dawn Tyas and the St Michael’s Parking Working Group the commute to St Michael’s CE Primary School in Thorpe on the Hill needed a better alternative.

They therefore set up a Park and Stride scheme, offering parents the option of parking at the Oliver Roper Centre community hall in the village and walking together into school.

The 8.30am meet and walk takes around six minutes and is aimed at reducing traffic in the village and around the school.

Dawn Tyas decided to do her bit to reduce traffic. Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite

Dawn said: “Many parents travel between one and four miles to school. There are often around 40 cars at school drop-off and pick-up times.

“In January this year, as a parent of a child in the reception class who felt that I was adding to this problem, I set up a small group of parents to look into ways of reducing parking around the school.

“We surveyed all the parents with a 60% response to our questionnaire and many said they would be interested in us looking into a Park and Stride idea.

“We are pleased to be launching this new idea of parking at the Oliver Roper Centre in Thorpe and walking 6 minutes along the path to the school.”

The group also ran a competition at the school for pupils to design the Park and Stride logo. The winning design was the art work of Nathan aged 8.

The scheme logo was designed by Nathan, aged eight.

Dawn added: “I would like to emphasise that as a group we are about offering choice for parents who wish to use their car less, not about making judgments about parents who bring their car to the school gate, or where they park.

“The scheme has many benefits, not just about being more considerate to the village community, but also to make us more ecologically aware, reduce our carbon footprint and to keep us generally fitter.

“There were 20 cars parked at the centre and off the road this morning. Given the weather conditions it was a great help to those travelling through the village.”

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